Satyagraha on a Pennsylvania Highway

Mark this: I’m convinced Donald Trump’s election is a national tragedy and bodes ill for the world. Ring out the protests in the short term while plotting long-term strategies, please. As for those complaining about all the “liberal” cry babies and post-election whining: Your candidate hinted at “rigged” voting before the ballots were cast.

What’s up with that?

But I’ll pause and breathe deep. I’ll be Gandhi-esque about my resistance and embrace his Satyagraha philosophy, which Martin Luther King, Jr. characterized as “love in action.” Such love views the scenery through the other’s eyes. Pastor Leon Hebring of the First Baptist Church of Meriden, CT, practiced Satyagraha and posted his insights on Facebook. Here is his post, with no further comment:

I just returned from an exhaustingrag and fruitless trip through north central PA; the stretch from Scranton 90 miles northwest was beautiful but truly depressing. I quipped about meth labs and rotten teeth but also saw deep deep poverty, hard working folks, kind folks and ghosts of a past that must have been better on many levels than life out there is now. I also observed a very high concentration of Confederate flags and Trump signs and I think I am beginning to “get it” a little bit.

A significant % of people who voted for Trump were not embracing his racism, hate, moral bankruptcy, greed and sexism; they are so desperate, so abandoned by the neo-liberal hypocrites who still sell the lie that they are on the side of the “common man” and minorities. So fed up with Democrats turning a blind eye and deaf ear to the fracking destroying their water and economic policy that only adds to their problems; so fed up with the utter B.S. spewing from Hillary’s mouth that I am convinced lots of Trump voters simply said “What the hell, he’s not an insider, let’s kick the bums out.”

Sure, the hate-filled trolls always lurking in the underbelly of American society, only poking their heads out for moments of cowardly bravado have been emboldened and have crawled out into the daylight, but they were always there.

I am still very concerned because I think the Trump we saw for 18 months, or 50 years, is the Trump moving into the White House, NOT the one that pretended to be human for 10 minutes after he won. But I think I “get it” a little better, and for those poor desperate souls, so disenfranchised they somehow found a way to live with a Trump vote, I think I get it and I wish you well.